Eleanor Crosses were built by King Edward I of England to honor his wife, Eleanor of Castile, after Eleanor’s death in November 1290. The 12 monumental crosses marked the places where Eleanor’s funeral procession rested during the journey from Harby, near Lincoln, to London, where Eleanor’s body was buried in Westminster Abbey. Three of the original crosses survive—at Geddington, Hardingstone, and Waltham. A copy stands outside the Charing Cross station in London. Historians believe Edward was inspired by a similar series of crosses erected in France in 1271 to mark the passage of the funeral procession of King Louis IX, also called Saint Louis.
